~ Nine times Ernst Thälmann ~

Ernst Thälmann Memorial (Ernst-Thälmann-Denkmal) in Berlin is many different things to different people, but all would agree that it is, at the very least, an oddity.

An unmistakably communist monument, it evokes an awkward past in a city now focused on attracting startuppers and large companies. It sits over an area barely taken care of in the middle of a quickly gentrifying district, yet it's too big to be ignored. At the intersection of neighborhoods, it is a common passage for locals and a meeting point for strollers, tourists, drunks and skateboarders.

It's a depiction of a mythologized East German 'hero', yet its soviet sculptor Lew Kerbel altered the face to resemble Lenin, giving it a feel akin to those thousands of statues found all over the former USSR. Escaping demolition in the 90's due to excessive costs, it's one of the few survivors among the hundreds of East German monuments, streets, schools and organizations commemorating a communist leader murdered by the Nazis that most people outside of the former East Germany could barely identify.

Closer to me: Ernst Thälmann Memorial is situated a few hundred meters from my home, making it a very familiar sight. Familiar yet always fascinating, because so absurd in its scale, self-seriousness and out-of-placeness...
It was only logical then to photograph it once in a while. A few early attempts convinced me to create a series always using the same standpoint. This has begun in 2010. While new motifs are obviously getting rarer over time, the project is still (intermittently) ongoing...

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